The present invention was developed in connection with the transportation and storage of liquids, and will be described particularly in connection with that application. It is to be understood, however that the invention has numerous other applications, for example, in the transportation of bulk solids and containers or large objects that would normally require auxiliary loading and unloading equipment.
In liquid transportation, the current practice is to load a liquid into a transport container at its point of origin. The transport container is then transported to its destination where the liquid is transferred into another receptacle. This multiple handling is time consuming and, in the case of liquids, risks a spill or contamination with every transfer. It would therefore be beneficial to be able to minimize the amount of handling necessary in transferring liquids or other materials from one location to another.